


Nightmares and Resurrections

by thunderlilly



Series: Nightmares and Resurrections [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Jason starts out dead, Lazarus Pit, Nightmares, Teeth, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-07-10 01:55:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19897978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderlilly/pseuds/thunderlilly
Summary: Jason gets resurrected by the Lazarus Pit, Dream is fascinated and Death adopts him.





	1. Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> This probably only makes sense in my head and in later chapters

When Jason came to he was floating in a darkness so black it felt like it was slowly seeping into his body, pressing into his mouth and nose and eyes, but when he tried to scream, nothing came. He couldn’t move, either, wasn’t even sure if he had a body that he _could_ move, or even feel with. He remembered fire, its heat burning through him, singing his skin and eating at his flesh. He remembered the pain of cold steel breaking his body, shattering bones and splitting apart his muscles and skin. He felt it echo through his memories into his mind like a fever dream, distant and strangely detached from his body.

He could hear the Joker’s maniacal laughter and the booming sound of an explosion, a woman screaming, begging, and people ordering her to be quiet. He could hear himself, howling and screaming in pain, yelling for Mother and Mom and Batman and Dad.

Jason could remember neither of them saving him. Saving neither of them.

He was hurting, he knew, his whole being curling and writhing around itself in agony that was only remembered and still so acutely, painfully real. He was screaming again, soundlessly, twisting and turning and scratching at the walls of his own mind, willing himself away from the memories of pain and torture and death.

And then they faded. For one precious, blessed second they faded. The sounds of the beating and the crying and the screaming fading away and Jason felt like he could finally breathe again.

Then the pain shifted, the Joker slipping from his thoughts to make place for the man he so desperately ached for. The one person he’d wanted to come for him more than anything.

Now, though, Jason would have given just about anything to make the tall, dark figure in front of him disappear. Before him - and he couldn’t say if it was truly in front of his eyes or just all in his head - stood Bruce. Stood Batman, frowning down at him from behind the cowl.

He was bigger than Jason remembered. Broader, grimmer. Darker.

He was terrifying and Jason had never, in all of his life, felt as small as he did now. Of course, Bruce had always been kind of intimidating to him - he had picked Jason off the streets and he could always just throw whim back there, a knowledge that never stopped thrumming in the back of his mind, that Jason had to remind himself of daily.

A soldier, not a son. No matter what Bruce said, he was an asset. A placeholder until the original would come flying back to the nest.

Naturally, the Batman was even scarier than even Bruce, had to be in order to keep up with Gotham’s worst. Jason had never really had any trouble distinguishing between the two before, it had always been obvious in the way Batman’s shoulders relaxed whenever he took off the cowl and then more with every piece of armor he put back in the case until it was just Bruce standing in the cave. No less dangerous and no less sharp, but still more at ease, not as fast to scold Jason for not being the Robin he wanted.

Now, though, They towered over him, ominous and disapproving and Jason found himself wishing for the Joker to come back.

“Jason,” They said and it seemed to be both Bruce’s tired and absent rumble and the Bat’s intimidating growl. Jason couldn’t stop his shoulders from hunching inwards automatically.

“You have disappointed me,” They continued, and Jason had heard these same words directed at him often enough, but never by Bruce, never by someone who _mattered_ and this, _this_ was way worse than any punishment his real father could ever have inflicted on him. “You went against my orders.” The Bat loomed darker over him with every word. “You disobeyed me. You were weak. You failed.” Another kind of pain grew within Jason at every word, festering and sickening and still, he listened as They continued coldly.

“You behaved like a child. Like a mindless street rat.” They sneered and Jason knew what they were going to say next,and yet, he couldn’t find enough strength within himself to brace himself against it.

“I should have left you on the streets with the rest of Gotham’s trash.”

It _hurt_. Hearing the words Jason had always suspected Bruce was thinking be spoken out loud hurt more than Jason had ever known possible. Distantly, he was aware that what was happening right then, what he was seeing and hearing and _feeling_ , wasn’t real, _couldn’t_ be real, because even if Bruce thought really did think like that, he would never say it, much less to Jason’s face.

And also, because Jason had been beaten half to death by the Joker and then blown up. Because Jason was dead and because Batman hadn’t come to save him.

There was the sound of static reverberating inside his mind, growing louder and louder and, hidden beneath that were the haunting sounds of his own execution.

“You went against my direct orders and these are the consequences,” ~~Batman, Bruce,~~ Batman told him, one corner of his mouth ticking upwards slightly. “You deserve this.”

The noises were rising to an almost unbearably loud level, nearly drowning Them out entirely and Jason whimpered in pain.

Then, suddenly, it was quiet. Jason could still see ~~Bruce, Batman,~~ Bruce talking, could see his mouth moving and his eyes, cold under the dark shadows of the Bat’s cowl. The static, too, had disappeared. In the deafening silence that followed, he couldn’t even hear his own stuttering heartbeat.

It pressed all around him, like the darkness had before, made him immobile, unable to look away as the Thing in front of him, ~~his savior, his mentor,~~ his father, twitched and convulsed, Their eyes never straying from Jason’s as the front of Their armor gave way to the shiny red blade a sword.

Jason stared in horror as it twisted and turned, blood glinting menacingly before it was slowly pulled back. It emerged again, lower this time, a little to the left cutting right through where Their lungs would sit.

Jason screamed and this time he could hear it loud and clear.

Not loud enough, though, that he couldn’t also hear the wet sound of the blade piercing Their stomach. He was still screaming, breathlessly, when the image of his ~~father, idol,~~ guardian started to change and flicker like smoke. Broad shoulders becoming slimmer, frailer and the dark armor giving way to too pale skin. Sick, glassy eyes. Unwashed, unkempt hair.

Until Jason was staring into the face of his mother.

Not Sheila Haywood the woman he’d died to protect - his birthmother, the one who had betrayed him - but his real one. Catherine Todd who had raised him and taught him and loved and protected him until she couldn’t anymore. Until she’d cared more for the drugs and the alcohol than him. The mother that had been so brutally taken from him, whose death he was still reliving in his dreams.

Slowly, he raised his eyes from the blade sticking out of her navel and up to her face, so white it was almost translucent, framed by black curls and disfigured by blood - _so much blood_ \- running from a toothless grinning mouth. There was a sickening, tinkling sound - like bullet shells hitting the ground - and when Jason looked down to his feet they were standing on nothing but darkness, surrounded by scattered hills of gleaming white and bloodstained teeth.

The tinkling sound grew louder and louder, drowning out the sounds of his whimpers as theysteadily grew higher and when Jason lifted his gaze again it was Alfred standing in front of him, his suit sitting perfectly and his crisp, immaculate white shirt stained with blood.

Calm, kind Alfred who always knew how to get him down from the adrenalin rush after a hard mission.

Who made him hot chocolate whenever he couldn’t sleep. Who kept Dick and his sharp words and condescending laughs away, kept him from hurting Jason. Alfred who was now staring at him with such resentful accusation in his eyes that Jason felt flayed and adrift.

Guilty.

Because this was his fault. This was his punishment. He had objected. He had disobeyed. He had disappointed everyone. And he had failed.

He howled.

“DICK!”

Jason could feel the name echo in his head.

“Dick!” Quieter this time, and his voice cracked on the name.

He remembered Dick telling him once, at one of the few times he’d actually seen the man in person, that, no matter what, Jason could always call him. Count on him.

Dick had given him his number and patted his shoulder once, hard, and they had both known it was a lie.

But this wasn’t for Jason. This was for Alfred. Because Jason knew that Dick was the only one left who could help him, even if it was only for the butler’s sake.

Because Jason would never be enough for anyone, for Dick Grayson even less than for Batman or Bruce.

“Dick,” he whispered - prayed - voicing the mantra in his head. “Dick, Dick, Dick,Dick.”

A hand gripped his shoulder, hard. And the smell of sweat and chalk and bitter resentment crawled into his mouth. When Jason opened his eyes it wasn’t Alfred standing before him anymore.

“What are you praying for, Little Wing?” Dick said and the nickname sounded just as mocking as it had when Jason had still been alive. “I’m right here.”

And then, looking into the gleefully glinting eyes of his predecessor, Jason knew he was in hell. Dicks hand gripped his shoulder tighter, making Jason flinch away from him, but Dick only followed, leaning into him so that his bloody grinning mouth was only a breath away from Jason’s. His breath tasted metallic and stale - dead - and he chuckled wetly.

“What now, Little Wing?” He asked. “What is it that you want from me? Want me to dig you out of this mess of yours? Want me to take care of all your problems?” He cackled as Jason tensed, bright and malicious. “Do you want me to save you, Jaybird? And here I was starting to think that Bruce wasn’t so wrong after all, replacing me with you.” The corners of Dick’s lips pulled downward and some of his blood sprayed onto Jason’s face as he snorted. “What a disappointment you are, Jay,” he said, almost kindly, then he threw his head back and started laughing again, maniacally, his fingers digging deep into Jason’s shoulder and Jason felt his fingernails cutting his palms.

He stood rooted to the spot as Dick just kept on laughing, spitting blood and teeth and venom with a horrible, gurgling sound and not bothering to wipe the thick, red tears from his cheeks.

Then, suddenly, Dick jerked forward, towards Jason until Jason couldn’t lean any further back and Dick could lay his forehead against his as he took a few shuffling steps closer to fully press against him. With each step Dick took, the blade that Jason noticed only now sticking out of his kidneys retreated farther back into his body and with each step Dick slumped a little more, as if it had only been his murder weapon holding him upright.

Dick was still laughing when he finally keeled over, the blade disconnecting with a sick slurping sound, and his forehead slipping from Jason’s to his shoulder and sliding further down until he was kneeling and leaning against Jason’s legs, clutching his ankles tightly.

In horror Jason stared at the man that should have been his brother. Dick didn’t stare back, instead, he breathed in once and closed his eyes.

“Goodbye, Jason,” he whispered and let go, slowly sinking deeper into the darkness that was still surrounding them. Fading into the black until all Jason could see were a few shining white teeth, lazily trailing after him.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason meets the Corinthian and Death does them apart.

He stood stock still, muscles straining downwards toward his brother’s drowning body but unable to move.

His head snapped up when he heard a quiet, deep chuckle.

The shining white set of teeth flashing down at him made his own clench tightly. They were fletching at him from a grin that looked sharp and cruel and Jason _knew_ that he had seen this expression aimed at him before. It made his body tense up with fear.

Ripping his eyes away from the sneering mouth he took in the rest of the figure in front of him.

Before him stood a man dressed completely in white. White skin clad in white clothes. White teeth grinning out of a white face topped with white, gelled-back hair.

Jason froze when he let his gaze slide up to where the man’s eyes should have been.

Four rows of shining white teeth glinted back at him, brighter than anything else around them.

The man smiled wider and Jason shuddered. He tried to take a step back but felt that strange disassociation from his body rise up again. The man’s smile turned predatory.

“Who are you?” Jason croaked and he chuckled.

“You don’t remember me?” He asked, mock offended. “I will try not to take that too personal. Though I can’t seem to decide if I should feel more honored or offended that you buried me so deep inside your own mind that you don’t recognize me.” The man’s voice was deep and silky and it scratched uncomfortably at his memories.

And Jason still couldn’t move his eyes away from the teeth.

When the man didn’t seem in any hurry to say anything more Jason swallowed and tried again, “Who… What are you?“ He corrected and it earned him a twitch of the man’s lips.

“Ah,“ he said, still grinning. “Finally asking the right questions, are we?” Jason clenched his jaw at the patronizing tone, but before he could tell him off the man was already speaking on.

“As it is, right now, I’m just a dream standing before its creator asking to be loved. A bad dream, of course,” he took a big step further towards Jason who still couldn’t make himself move. “But I’m getting stronger, you know? You just,” he covered a giggle behind his hand, wrinkling up his eyes and scrunching his nose, distantly, Jason noticed that it probably would have looked handsome on anyone else.

“Pardon me,” the man said, entirely unapologetic while he let his hand fall away from his mouth. “It’s just so ironic, you know? Almost poetic in its tragedy. I have waited so, so long to finally meet you in person, my liege,” he mock-bowed, so that his head almost touched his own knees, “You see, you created me. Then you,” he wriggled his fingers and moved his hands in a sort of shooing motion, “compartmentalized me away and still, you just kept on making me stronger.

In order to forget one monster you just made another, much crueler, much more dangerous one.”

He chortled and scrunched up his nose again and Jason could feel bile rising up in his throat at the sense of déjà-vu . The man just went on in a saccharin voice, his mannerisms even more dramatic than before.

“Me. And now here we are. Me, your unfortunate creation. A monster. An abomination, craving nothing more than the acceptance and, dare I say it” he clasped his hands over his heart theatrically, “ _Love_ of its creator and you, the miserable wretch who made his greatest nightmare come true. If that’s not a tragedy I don’t -“

“Cut the crap!” Jason finally interrupted and the man’s mouth snapped shut with an audible click. For an instance his smile faded, making way for a hateful grimace before it returned, even more malicious than before. But this time, Jason refused to budge and when he continued his voice was steady and calm.

“What the fuck do you want from me? Where are we and why are you here with me? And don’t give me any more of that Frankenstein crap,” he added when the man opened his mouth with another sly smirk. “I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

“Why,” the man asked shrewdly, moving his head in a manner that reminded Jason more of a vulture than a person. “Got anywhere to be after this? Any more mothers to save?” He tutted, shaking his head slowly. “You really should be more careful with them, my boy, they’re fragile things. And they don’t grow on trees, you know. Usually, people only get one and here you are, your second one dead and still demanding for more. Such a spoiled brat.”

Jason gritted his teeth against the rage boiling in his gut and concentrated on calming his breathing instead.

“And let’s not even get started about your fathers, _ugh_ ,” the man steepled his lips, chastising. “You had such high hopes for the second one and now look where that has gotten you. Dead for barely six months and already replaced. Quite frankly, at this point I’m really starting to think the problem isyou and not them. There must be something about you that just…” He trailed off with a click of his tongue and tapped his forefinger against his chin thoughtfully.

Still trying to fight his anger back down it took Jason a few moments before he had fully processed the words that had been spoken, but when he did -

“What do you mean? Six months?” The man returned back to his default grin and now Jason didn’t even bother to try and control his voice anymore, he couldn’t have kept the hysteria inside if he’d wanted to. “What do you mean, _replaced_?!”

When the man only smirked wider at him Jason took a step forward, crowding against him and gripping the lapels of his suit tightly with both fists.

“Answer me!” He screamed.

“Now, now. Let’s not get aggressive, Your Highness, we don’t want to do something we’d regret later, do we?”

Jason slapped his placating hands out of his face and shook him again.

“Tell me!”

“No need to be afraid, sonny. _I_ am here for you. I have experience with being left behind and forgotten by your own creators. You won’t feel this… _weak_ for long, I promise. Soon, you won’t even be all that angry anymore. There will be only hatred for those that abandoned you. You’ll learn to stand on your own two feet. Create your own rules. Your own world. A better one. Only you and me, no one there to hurt you, my boy, no one there to disappoint you but me, but I will never disappoint you, I swear to you. I will always be right here, right at your back, King, and we will rip everyone apart who crosses us. We will rip everyone apart.”

With a jolt Jason ripped his hands away from him, but he didn’t get far. Pausing only for a fraction of a second in his manic speech the man grabbed both of his wrists in his hands - so tight that Jason could feel the bones grinding together under his skin - and leaned down so that the white rows of teeth where his eyes should have been were on the same level with Jason’s.

Even without the eyes, though, Jason knew that he was being stared at intently.

“You left me once, Creator. You made me, out of your fear and your anger and your pain, forged me as your weapon and as your shield and then you buried me away, just like _he_ buried you six feet underground. You replaced me with a bat and a bird and the gargoyles and demons of a painted whore of a city. But you remember me now. The Pit they threw you into gave you back to me and now I’ll never leave your side again.”

Jason could feel his heart beating painfully against the inside of his ribs, his pulse hammering in his ears, making him dizzy as he swayed in the man’s grip.

“I,” he said and trailed off, the buzzing and itching in his head drowning out any other thoughts.

“What do you… I don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re-“

Jason no longer knew if he was shaking out of anger or fear or something else entirely.

Looking at the man in front of him was disturbing and the itching in his mind only got worse the longer he spent in his vicinity. It was a warning, Jason knew. Wherever he’d seen the man before, it hadn’t been good.

The man wasn’t smiling anymore, he was deadly serious when he gripped Jason’s shoulders tight enough to bruise and leaned even further in.

“I am what you made me into,” he murmured, no traces of humor or mockery in his demeanor anymore.

“I was a memory, at first. A horrible thing that happened to you. That took away all the control you had so carefully claimed for yourself.” The ringing in Jason’s ears got louder and he felt unbalanced. He was shaking.

“You ran away,” the man went on, taking Jason’s weight as if he weighed nothing at all. “But you couldn’t get me out of your head, no matter how hard you tried until, eventually, I became a nightmare, haunting you whenever you closed your eyes or looked into a mirror or glanced at the shadows in the corners of your room.

And then _he_ found you. The self-made nightmare that you chose over me without a second thought and you let him banish me. Banished back into your darkest dreams and forgotten as soon as you woke until you finally forgot about me completely.”

Jason whimpered at the onslaught of voices all around him.

\- WOMAN FOUND MURDERED IN HER APARTMENT -

The noise inside his own head was now almost as loud as the man’s rising voice and Jason felt sick.

-ER SON MISSING-

“I’ve been waiting for you to remember.”

\- MISSING HER TEETH - 

“I’ve waited and waited, all these years.”

\- BURGLARY GONE WRONG -

“And now, finally, here we are, together at last.”

The man moved his hands from Jason’s shoulders to sling around his chest and pulled him into a tight embrace.

The scent of antiseptics and chlorine rose into his nose and Jason swallowed a whine as a flood of memories rushed through his mind.

He remembered now.

Coming home late in the evening from a long day of picking pockets and avoiding any unwanted attention of the gang members that always loitered around Crime Alley looking for another poor soul they could pressure into doing their dirty work.

Coming home to a too quiet flat smelling of cleaning agents and blood and death.

Finding his mother not in her room but in the kitchen that she hadn’t set a foot inside in months.

Finding her dead and cold on red-stained tiles, eyes open and afraid and her toothless mouth opened wide in a silent scream.

He remembered the man dressed completely in white, with the smooth, deep voice and cold, soulless eyes.

Drops of blood slipping from a knife onto the floor and the softly tinkling sounds of his mother’s teeth clattering together inside a small bag in the man’s hand.

He had been unable to move, unable to speak and when the man had crouched down to where he was kneeling on the ground Jason hadn’t even flinched, had just sat there and held his dead mother’s hand.

He remembered the man speaking and he remembered him smiling and patting his cheek softly. He remembered his most important words, “I am the Corinthian. See that you remember me, my boy,” before he got up and left without another backwards glance.

Left Jason alone with the corpse of his mother .

He remembered a woman with a soft face and soft words and his mother, unfocused and fadingaway like smoke and he remembered both of them leaving together.

Leaving him alone with a body.

He remembered packing his things into a backpack and leaving on his own, never to return.

Jason groaned and he felt the Corinthian smile into his temple.

“So you remember now. Good. That’s good. Now you will never forget me again.” He stroked up his spine and Jason shook his head.

“No,” he whispered. The Corinthian ignored him.

“Now we will be together forever. No more bats. No more birds. Just us.”

Abruptly, all feeling returned to Jason’s body and he struggled against the other’s hold on him, forcing his arms away from his shoulders and squirming out of his grip.

“No,” he said again, louder this time and with a strength he didn’t feel. “I don’t want you in my head. I don’t want you in my life. You’re a nightmare and a monster and I don’t want your ugly face anywhere near me!”

Slowly, the Corinthian’s smile slipped from his face. The blankness that settled there in its stead for a few moments was unsettling, but the expression of pure hatred that spread over his face afterward made dread settle deep in Jason’s gut.

When the Corinthian spoke next, his voice had lost all its smoothness. It was shrill and piercing and he dug his fingers deep into Jason’s shoulders again.

“You!” He spat. “You spoiled little brat! What do you think, that just because you made me you have the right to just bury me away? Lock me into the deepest, darkest parts of yourself? That you can just _unmake_ me?!”

He shook Jason with every word, backing him up against nothing.

“You have no right, boy, no right to me! You have a _responsibility_. It’s time to step up and face them, instead of running away like you always do! And now, now I wont let you run away again. Now I am here, if you want me to be or not, you don’t have a choice. I will always be here, always right behind you, always in your head and you will never get rid of me ever again. I’ll haunt you in your sleep and I’ll haunt you when you’re awake and I’ll still be there, laughing at your painthe next time you di-“

The sudden silence interrupting his speech was so abrupt that it took Jason a second to register it in the first place, his ears still ringing with the Corinthian’s screamed threats.

There was a hand on Jason’s shoulder, but it wasn’t the Corinthian’s, its grip was gentle and steadying and Jason found himself leaning into it as the Corinthian staggered backwards, mouth working wordlessly and hands going to his throat.

The expression on his face was one of pure terror when he stared at whoever was standing behind Jason and it was enough to make him feel more at ease.

Slowly, he turned around, stepping away from the hand without turning his back on the Corinthian.

Behind him stood a girl who couldn’t possibly be any older than 20, dressed completely in black. Black hair, black eyes framed by thick black eyeliner. Black shirt, black jeans, black boots. The only things about her that weren’t dark enough to make his eyes hurt was her deathly pale skin- as pale as the Corinthian’s - and the silver, heavy-looking Ankh symbol hanging on a chain from her neck.

She looked like someone had taken a look at the Corinthian and then made her everything he wasn’t.

Her smile was kind.

“It’s the other way around, little one,” she said, obviously amused.“You made him after me.”

Transfixed, Jason stared at her, his memories jumbling together in his head. He felt like he should be afraid, like he should feel angry and _sad_ , because she was the End. But looking at her, and at her smiling face he couldn’t make himself feel anything else but safe.

“Who are you?” Jason asked, even though he knew who she was even before the words left his mouth, he remembered her from before. From the time she’d taken his mom with her. From the time she’d taken his mother with her. And from the time she’d come and taken him with her as well.

Her smile turned mischievous.

“What now, sweetness, you don’t remember me?”

Her words - so close to those the Corinthian had uttered just a few minutes before - made a cold shiver run down Jason’s spine, but he shook it off easily when she put her hand on his shoulder again, reassuringly.

The Corinthian stood at the side, silently glaring at them with eyes that weren’t there.

If looks could kill, Jason thought with a snort and turned back to the woman.

She looked back at him with a twinkle in her eyes as if she’d heard his thoughts. Her fingers tightened minutely.

“I’m Death,” she said, softly, answering his earlier question. “And I’m not the end, sweetheart, in fact I am rather…Endless. I’ve told you before.” She said it like it was a joke no one but her could understand. Yet, it made Jason return her smile, if somewhat subdued.

“ And you,” she continued, "shouldn’t be here.”

It wasn’t an accusation, Jason knew, it was a fact that he could feel in his bones. He was dead, he’d been killed, he shouldn’t be anywhere.

“We need to talk, Jason.”


End file.
